Newsletter No. 6 | Term 1 Week 6 | Thursday 10th March 2022

Prayer

As we enter the season of Lent, may we take the time to think and reflect on our own lives and the choices we make, looking to make changes from the heart. Lent is an opportunity to not only look into our own hearts, but to recognise the good and the presence of Christ in those around us.

PRAYER FOR LENT

Jesus, you placed great value on acting with integrity. 

Your justice was applied to all, irrespective of who they were and what they did. Everything you did was out of love.

As a community, we seek your guidance to make good life choices. 

When we are tempted to fall short of the mark, prop us up.

Lead us to that place that will give us happiness in what we say and do. 

Make us strong to choose as you would choose, and to love as you would love.

Amen.

Principal's Message

Dear Families and Friends,

How good was it that we were able to celebrate Sports Day with so many of our families and friends present? Community get-togethers have been few and far between over the last couple of years, so it makes them all the more special when they can go ahead. 

Thank you to all family and friends who were able to come along. The children love it when their families come along to support them and it certainly adds to the overall atmosphere. We are all really proud of the effort the children put in throughout the day. They did a fabulous job and demonstrated outstanding sportsmanship towards each other.

Final Scores were:

McCarthy:  164

Spokes:  144

Turner:  142

Congratulations to McCarthy. It was a close result but they were the better team on the day! Well done to McCarthy leaders, Davina, Levi, Abbey and Lindon. All Year Six leaders, along with other older students, did a fabulous job of encouraging their younger teammates.

Well done also to the cheering leaders for each team. It sounded like we had a hundred students rather than 48. We love their enthusiasm!

The day finished off with some spectacular races. The Preschoolers race was once again a massive highlight - so cute! There was no stopping Louis - he took off at lightning speed. There were plenty of Mums represented in the Mum’s race, with Candy once again taking the honours. We can see where Levi and Louis get it from!  The Dad’s race was a true spectacle with a few of them taking a bit of a tumble. Well done to Tony Carlon who took the honours here. The staff agreed that their race would be a walking race, until Tahlia and Allira took off and raced to the finish line. It looked like a draw from where I was standing. These races were a really fun way to finish the day!

THANK YOU TO: 

• Tony Carlon and Mark Robb for cooking the sausages
• Mark Robb for helping out with the line-marking
• Parents and grandparents who were able to come along and help decorate the House areas
• Greta for helping to put the hurdles in place after each race
• Parents for entering the Parent race
• Staff for helping to set up and run the events throughout the day
• Students for their joyful participation and excellent sportsmanship

I can't wait until we do it all again next year!

DAD DOWN, DAD DOWN!

LONG SERVICE LEAVE

I will be taking a short amount of Long Service, beginning Thursday, 10th March. I will be returning on Monday, 21st March. During this time I will be attending my sons’s wedding which I am very excited about! I look forward to seeing everyone when I return. I am sure the children will have heaps to tell me!

Also, from Wednesday 23rd March to Friday 25th March I will be attending a statewide Principal Conference. I will be in touch with the school daily and if there is anything you need during the time of the Conference, please do not hesitate to email me. 

NEWSLETTER

There will be no Newsletter next week, Thursday, 17th March. If we need to give you any messages or reminders, we will email or put a message on the Parent’s Facebook page.

SWIMMING

The last two Swimming days are Friday 11th March and Friday 18th March. Thank you for your support with the jumbled up timetable for Swimming. It has run really smoothly and I am sure the children have benefited from the lessons. 

SCHOOL MAINTENANCE

There are a number of maintenance tasks which need to be completed around the school. A whiteboard will be placed out the front of the school with the list of tasks. We invite you to select one that suits you and then ask you to cross it off when you are finished.

Many hands make light work so the more people who help out the better. Thank you in advance for doing your part.

Tasks include:

• Spreading the pile of soft fall around the adventure playground area.
• Gardening maintenance, cutting back shrubs etc
• Weeding the playground area in preparation for the softfall
• Weeding the gaga pit
• Moving the sand form the long jump area to the gaga pit
• Painting the train
• Guerneying/cleaning the white picket fence

KANA 

We have decided that the school will not put an entry in for the KANA Parade this year. Unfortunately, with no volunteers to take it on, it was going to be a little difficult. Hopefully, next year when we are all a little bit more settled and (fingers crossed) our world is back to normal, we will be feeling ready to take it on and do a great job with it.

TENNIS

I would like to congratulate the children who represented our school at the Colac Division tennis Tournament on Monday: Tilly Scott, Annabelle Carlon, Indi Sutherland, Maverick Lenehan and Levi Armstrong. Mel Drayton and I took turns to supervise the children and we both commented that the children were an absolute delight to supervise. They were so well behaved and they represented St. Brendan’s so well with the excellent sportsmanship they demonstrated.

Each of our players played some lovely tennis and improved as the day went on. A special congratulations to Tilly Scott who made it to the Semi Finals. Well done Tilly!

Thank you to the parents for dropping off and picking up your children and thank you also to the  parents were able to make it along to show some support.

CLEAN UP AUSTRALIA DAY

Clean Up Australia Day took place last Sunday 6th March. Clean Up Australia inspires and empowers communitiesto clean up, fix up and conserve our environment.  The focus of Clean up Australia Day is as much on preventing rubbish entering our environment as it is removing what has already accumulated.

If you missed Clean up Australia Day or didn't know it was happening, we want to spread the message that cleaning up our environment is not something that can only be done once a year - you can collect rubbish 365 days of the year! We encourage everyone to have a go at finding and colledting some litter this weekend to help make our backyard a nicer place for everyone.

Our students Claire and Jessie Beardsley filled bags of rubbish from around the Beeac Lake on Sunday and were shocked and disapointed at what they found had been littered.

NAPLAN

The National Assessment Program - Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) is a set of annual assessments for all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 in Australia, covering skills in reading, writing, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and numeracy. Commissioned and managed by The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA), NAPLAN assessments take place in the second full week of May every year and were first established in 2008.

This year, St. Brendan’s has been advised that we will be completing the NAPLAN tests online, as opposed to on paper. The testing window is open between 11th - 20th May.  

In the lead up to the test, students will have the opportunity to do a practice run so that they will be familiar with the format on the day. 

This week, Parents and carers of students in Years 3 and 5  will receive a flyer explaining details about NAPLAN. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please see Leanne or your child’s classroom teacher.

HOT CROSS BUN FUNDRAISER

Orders have been streaming in for our Hot Cross Bun Fundraiser, thank you to everyone who has already ordered. If you would like an order form please ask at the office. All orders must be submitted and paid for by Monday 28th March 2022. Hot cross Buns will be distributed from school during the final week of the term. Thank you to Laura Kate Bakes for sponsouring this fundraiser.

Have a lovely, restful long weekend everyone!

Leanne Eastman
PRINCIPAL
principal@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

Catholic Culture

PROJECT COMPASSION 

Lent began on March 2nd this year. As a Catholic school we use the time of Lent to raise funds for Project Compassion, a Catholic based charity ran by Caritas Australia.

This charity works to promote justice and uphold dignity for people living in less fortunate countries. Over the coming weeks we will share information about Project Compassion with you.

All students have been sent home with a donation box and we ask families to use this to start thinking about how you can support others less fortunate. Your child may like to forgo an icy-pole one day and instead donate their 50 cents to the family donation box.

Prep/1 Classroom News

Congratulations to all students on their incredible effort at Sports Day! It was amazing to watch you all giving your best and having so much fun along the way. 

LITERACY: On Tuesday, a very strange surprise awaited us in the classroom - a basket full of exotic fruits! We wondered what it was for and made lots of predictions about why it might be in our classroom. All was revealed when we listened to the story “Handa’s Surprise”. Over the next few weeks, we will be studying this narrative and learning lots about story writing. 

HOME READING: Keep up the great reading at home and remember to send in reader folders each week!

NUMERACY: This week for Maths, the Preps have been practicing writing the numbers 1-10 using correct formation. The Grade 1’s have been investigating numbers to 100 and partitioning them into tens and ones. An exciting challenge this week was seeing how many ‘counting teddies’ we could balance on a friend’s arm! Wiggly friends made this challenge very challenging indeed but provided for lots of laughs.

RELIGION: We continued our investigation into sacred places for RE and visited St.Brendan’s Church. Students identified several important items and places within the church, including the altar, lectern, tabernacle and nave.

INTEGRATED CURRICULUM: Our history unit has been super exciting so far! Students have mapped the origin of their families by placing pins on our world map. It was interesting to observe that lots of students have families that originated in Europe. We have also been thinking about items that can tell us about the past eg. old photos, plaques and objects.

HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK: Issy Coates has been a “brave speller” this week. Issy took on the challenge of writing a story in response to a picture prompt. Even though she didn’t know how to spell every word she wrote, she did her best to sound them out! Having a go and being willing to make a mistake is the best way to improve. Keep it up Issy!

Allira Kluver
akluver@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

2/3/4 Classroom News

Hello everybody!

Yesterday we held our annual Sports Day and McCarthy took out the title this year. What a fantastic effort from our senior leaders – they were very respectful and conscious of keeping up team spirit throughout the day. Go McCarthy!!

This week we are focusing on the book ‘The Way I Feel’ by Janan Cain. The book investigates a variety of emotions and what they look like.

 I have introduced the Zones of Regulations to our class to further explore feelings and emotions that we can experience.

 We have the Red Zone -   angry, mean, scared, out of control.

 Blue Zone – sad, sick, tired, bored.

 Yellow Zone – frustrated, worried, silly, excited.

 Green Zone – happy, calm, OK, chill.

The children have the opportunity to move their name around the zones depending on the feelings they are experiencing.

We have started using EPIC again and have hit the 100 Books read mark. An excellent start 2/3/4’s!

This week in Writing we are building sentences with detail and description.

One of the  sentences given to everyone was : The fire was hot. Some of the Year 3’s responses were as follows:

The fire was burning hot as it was going through the jungle. (Archie)

The dangerous, shining fire was super hot as it blew in the wind. (Brianna)

The flaming, red fire was sizzling hot on the dead grass. (Kaitlyn)

The steaming, sizzling fire was boiling as it crept into the bush. (Grace)

The scary, red and orange fire was sparkling as it was going through the bush. (Nellie)

In Maths we have been learning about greater than, less than and their associated symbols.

Homework has been sent home with a contract to complete and is due back on Friday.

I hope you all enjoy the public holiday on Monday and get to have precious family time together.

The Star of the Week award goes to Nellie Armistead. Congratulations on your excellent effort!

If you have any concerns or queries please contact me at school or by email.

Cheers,

Mandy Sutherland
msutherland@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

5/6 Classroom News

Welcome to Week 7!

Wow, this term is flying by! We had a great time at Sports Day yesterday, it was wonderful to see everyone there and I was particularly impressed with the good sportsmanship and encouragement displayed by all of our students. Well done everyone!

This week in Writing we started our Narrative unit. We have been working on developing strong settings and characters for our stories.

In Maths this week we begun our Addition and Subtraction learning cycle and have started off learning about vertical addition. Year 5’s have been adding 4 digit numbers and Year 6’s have been adding 5 digit numbers.

This week in Integrated Curriculum we have been learning about the Australian Electrol process. We have been discussing how elections are open, free and fair and the roles and responsibilities of electors.

In Religion last week we were lucky enough to have a Zoom call with Bishop Paul Bird from Ballarat. The students were in expert groups and asked him some questions, read below some facts they found out.

Expert group 1:

On the weekend Bishop Paul likes to sleep in, go for walks, go swimming and watch tv. He also listens to classical music and plays folk and Irish music on the accordion. He follows AFL, cricket, rugby league and soccer.

Expert group 2:

Bishop Paul became a priest at 25 years old and has been a priest for 47 years. For his job he organises and celebrates masses, helps the community and visits schools. He came to our school in 2018 and in 2014 for a blessing. His favourite part about his job is praying with people and having a chat. The hardest part about his job is dealing with different peoples opinions.

Expert group 3:

Bishop Paul has been to Rome a few times. He has met Pope Francis and Pope Benedict. He told us that the Pope has 2 main roles, to look after catholic communities across the world and look after people in need or are having trouble.

A reminder that last week instructions were sent home for families to connect to ‘Seesaw’. This is an app designed for communication between school and home. Please let me know if you need any help setting this up.

I hope you all enjoy the long weekend, please don’t hesitate to email me if you have any questions or concerns. 

Tahlia Whytcross
twhytcross@sbcoragulac.catholic.edu.au

Important Dates

Acknowledgement of Country

At St. Brendan’s Primary School we pay our respects to the traditional owners of the land, the Gulidjan people and pay our respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.

We will respect the land, animals and waterways, from the roots of the earth to the tops of the trees. Through the example of our first Australians, we understand that if we look after the country, then the country will look after us.

About Us

School Vision:   'For you I have a destiny and a hope.'                    

PARISH PRIEST: Fr Michael O’Toole                  PRINCIPAL: Mrs Leanne Eastman

SAC CHAIRPERSON: Ms Gayle McNabb          CHILD SAFETY OFFICER: Mrs Leanne Eastman